


Oans, Zwoa...

by phantasma



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Dancing, M/M, Münchner Raketenklub, decently cheerful content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-25 07:38:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7524151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantasma/pseuds/phantasma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why didn't you dance with him?" And Alfons nearly slips from the curb to the gutter. / 2011</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oans, Zwoa...

Rain taps in consonant sounds and the streets don't stop to listen. Alexander's hand tightens around the umbrella, fights to keep the wind from catching it from underneath. He waits until he's far enough into the throng of pedestrians and window-browsers, then, with a careful glance left and right, starts:

"Why didn't you dance with him?"

And Alfons nearly slips from the curb to the gutter.

"It would have been— conspicuous."

"Hans and Otto did it," Alexander counters, and Alfons rewinds his scarf.

"Well, it—" once around, twice: "—didn't mean anything," he shuffles, nods a passing hello to a grandma behind a fruit stand. "And in any case -- he would have been embarrassed."

"Tsk," tsks Alexander, and as he shakes his head in vehement disagreement, little droplets dot the front of Alfons' jacket. "I don't think so."

"He wouldn't even dance with me if we were alone," Alfons insists, "And in any case, I admittedly don't dance very well."

"You're accounting for too many cases that haven't even been given the chance to occur. That's not very scientific of you."

Alfons muses that there isn't much very scientific about the way he feels about his flatmate, nor about the way his closest colleague knows all about it. There isn't anything scientific at all, and perhaps unscientific times call for unscientific measures.

"So just dance with him next time," Alexander tries, clapping a hand to Alfons' shoulder, and Alfons curses his friend's perception. "Or at least think about it. I'm not forcing you— it's just a suggestion."

"You," Alfons laughs, "are the furthest thing from forceful. And I appreciate you for listening. Really."

Alexander grins, and despite the weather and the doubt, Alfons does too.

* * *

 

Evening, stage set: men and women in _Tracht_ link arms, twirl, and Alfons fidgets the buttons of his sleeves loose, rolls them, laughs into his beer. Eyelids fall closed and for that second the tumbling voices seem to encapsulate him, feed energy forward in steady flows. The room bends slightly, and Alfons thinks, _slow down_.

“Ott—oooo!” Hans whoops; “ _Prost_!” and their glasses clang together. “Let’s,” with a wave, and a slosh of beer that Friedrich’s lap bears patiently, “do an encore.”

Otto rolls his eyes – “You’re the woman this time, you hear?” – and lets Hans lead anyway. A pointed _ahem_ from Alexander and Alfons (despite a knot of nerves) lets his leg meet Edward’s under the table.

“What?”

“Ah— nothing. Sorry,” Alfons stammers, and Edward shrugs and cradles his head in his hand, and the chance falls flat with a nearly audible thud.

"What was that?!" Alexander whispers frantically when Edward stands once to make his way to the restroom. At every passerby he nearly jumps.

"That was me being rational!" Alfons almost hisses, "I can't, I can't, I can't—"

"You never give up, though!"

"I give up this time! There's no chance!"

"There is!"

"There isn't!"

"Come on, now—"

"There isn't—"

"Isn't what?" Edward asks, eyebrow cocked quizzically, and Alfons starts and topples his glass— _Gott sei dank_ it's empty.

"Nothing," he means to say, but Hans, finished with twirling Otto about, is quicker.

"—Isn't a chance that Alfons would turn down the offer to take Otto's place!" he barks, clapping a hand to Alfons' shoulder.

Otto looks green— with nausea, not envy. "Watch him," he says gravely, narrowed eyes locked on Hans, "he's off-beat."

"Well, I'm not exactly the most on-beat either," Alfons insists, hands raised in neutrality, and Hans grabs his chance and takes hold of them, tugs Alfons toward the floor. Alfons swears that he catches him giving Alexander a wink, and somehow the thought of that is more terrifying than the act of dancing with Hans itself.

“What was that about?” he asks once they’re in the throng; he looks back toward the table once and feels his stomach lurch— _Should’ve taken Friedrich up on that offer to share_ _that pretzel._

“What was what?”

“You know what!”

“I know nothing!” Hans laughs, “—Get ready!” he warns, dips Alfons dramatically; if it weren’t for the effort he needed to take to keep from falling, Alfons may have scowled back.

The song ends, and in the interim of chatter before the next one picks up, Alfons starts to stop, nearly stumbles as Hans doesn’t slow.

“What—”

“Wait!” Hans whispers, gives Alfons another twirl.

_I think I’m going to be sick._  

The music swells again, the crowd thickens, and they circle, once, twice— and Hans lets go with a push, and Alfons—

— Finds himself face-to-face with Edward. He grabs his shoulders to steady himself instinctively, sways with dizziness and incomplete motion, and Edward, alarmed and unprepared, automatically steps with him. It cycles and they’re turning suddenly and Alfons is sure that he hears Hans and Otto laughing.

“I’m sorry!” he shouts, but Edward just laughs too.

“I’ll show you how we do it back home,” he says with that note of subtle pride, and Alfons smiles and follows obediently. It’s a bit more complicated than the incessant spinning of the _Zweifacher_ , but keeping up with Hans’ eclectic whirls has conditioned Alfons well enough; he catches up quickly, but with concentration— and silent admiration of the fluidity of Edward’s movement. He wouldn’t have expected it— maybe not even believed it, had he not seen it himself.

“Not bad,” Edward smirks when they stop— a bit abruptly; Alfons stumbles.

“Not bad yourself,” he laughs in understatement, dizzy and eager to find his seat; while in movement he didn’t realize how badly he was shaking. Hans and Otto clap exaggeratedly once they rejoin the table – even Friedrich leans in to offer compliments – and Edward rolls his eyes. With a wink from Alexander Alfons stays silent, bracing himself against the table and the room’s persistent spinning, but for the rest of the night he doesn’t stop smiling.

* * *

 

“Don’t even,” Alfons warns, arms crossed as he leans against the workshop table. “Don’t.”

Alexander stifles a laugh with his apple.

“Otto keeps making exaggerated waltzing movements every time I pass him. _Unfair._ ”

“That’s punishment enough. I won’t say anything like, _see, I told you so_ —”

“Or it’s not-so-distant cousin _that wasn’t so hard, was it?_ ”

“Oh, no,” Alexander swears, hand over heart. “I have to save something for next time, don’t I?” 

With a groan, Alfons hopes that next time doesn’t come quickly. —Or (at a passing _Morning!_ from Edward) perhaps that it would come sooner.

**Author's Note:**

> the Münchner Raketenklub as it stands here, is fictitious and my own extrapolation. they are these guys (http://i.imgur.com/tTCCyXz.png), from left to right: Alexander (shortest), Friedrich (tallest), Otto, and Hans 
> 
> this was written in 2011, in Munich— go figure


End file.
